Creatively Destructive Hurricanes: Do Disasters Spark Innovation?
利用美国县级面板数据，研究发现飓风在短期内会刺激减灾类专利增加，但长期（超过20年）会显著抑制整体创新，表明灾害并非“伪装的福利”。
Abstract We investigate whether disasters can lead to innovation. We construct a US county-level panel of hurricane damages using climate data, hurricane tracks, and a wind field model and match these to patent applications by the location of their inventor over the last century in the United States. We examine both general innovation and patents that explicitly mention the terms ’hurricane’ or ’storm.’ In line with the current literature that hypothesizes innovative activity driven by shocks, in particular innovation intended to mitigate future shocks, we find that hurricanes lead to temporary boost in damage-mitigating patents a few years after the event. However, we also show there is long-term, lasting over two decades, general reduction of innovation after a damaging storm. We conclude that hurricanes, and possibly other types of disasters, cannot be viewed as a ’benefit in disguise,’ and that these events are unlikely to generate longer-term beneficial dynamics in an adversely affected location.